Our Gospel opens up with the people admiring the temple.
They were reflecting on the temple of its adornments.
And Jesus tells them that one day it will no longer be there. All would be gone.
I think they saw the temple as a place of worship that would always be there. A place where they would always be able to access and worship God.
It got me thinking about our own church and what we do here. And how we look at St Theresa and our worship. Do we see stain glass and wood and stone or do we see something bigger and more important.
Do we forget sometimes what we are doing here?
Have we become so familiar with the Mass that it is taken for granted. That our Lord’s gift to us is now a routine and we no longer realize how precious it is?
The Mass is the most precious thing for all men and women for it is where we do what Jesus told us. To eat his body and drink his blood… so that the event is not just a remembering. It is not just man’s attempt at prayer. It is man in his brokenness joining together with what is perfect, holy, all powerful, all merciful, all loving. Becoming joined in the only way possible on Earth with our creator.
It’s not about the preaching. Which is not supposed to entertain or even educate but help point to the Eucharist and prepare us to receive the body and blood…not worthily…for we are not worthy. Never have we been worthy and never shall we be worthy.
But we are loved by a Father who like the father in the prodigal son says to us. I don’t care what you have done or how you came to be here. I have forgotten. It doesn’t matter. God says to us what ever you have done, repent, turn back to me, your God, for I love you more than a human can even understand.
And the Son says, I offer you my body so that I can give you strength to endure.
And it is awesome to be here with a God like that. To walk in here from the world of chaos and selfishness and pain and hate and suffering. To come here broken. To come here with our own indiscretions, our own faults. To come here with our own cancers and illness and bodies failing. But coming here anyway to be with him.
We cannot take it for granted my friends because the day will come when we will no longer have the Mass. Can no longer have the Eucharist.
Whether it is society who continues to turn against the church and begins closing churches down or we ourselves with our decaying bodies eventually can no longer attend…one day each one of us will go to his last mass. And we will remember how awesome it was to consume the Eucharist, to smell the incense, to hear the singing, to be with our family here…true family joined by spirit and love of God.
I am a convert. So I remember not having the Eucharist and then taking the body for the first time and realizing clearly that I just received the body of our God.
Me. The sinner and totally unworthy. Kneeling down afterwards and finding the tears flowing down my cheeks. For at that moment I knew clearly I did not deserve it. The Eucharist wasn’t a right. It was not something I earned or could ever take through my own force or will. That is why the minister gives the Eucharist…it is not to be taken but received.
But I didn’t earn it. No, I received the Eucharist because Jesus Christ said I desire Tony to become part of my family. Just as he said to each of you personally that he wanted you. Not because you or I are awesome dudes. Or because we are the most beautiful or sinless. No, only because he loves us and we were ready to turn to him and say Amen, yes I believe this is the body and blood of Christ who died for ME.
How can we take it for granted.
How can we come here and not throw ourselves down and prostrate ourselves in fear and love and awesome recognition that we are in the presence of God the almighty who now gives himself up for us personally, individually and undeservedly.
How can we be late?
How can we miss this?
How can we leave early?
One day we will no longer have the Mass.
And we will realize what we lost.
But maybe just today we should stop and be mindful. We should stop and consider the precious and unique and awesome thing we are doing here.
Do not forget the gift. It isn’t just a nice story.
It isn’t something that just happened 2000 years ago.
It isn’t something old.
It happens each time we are here and Jesus through our priests turn ordinary bread and wine into his body and blood.
Like many of you I have faced my own mortality over the years due to illness, and the frailness of our body is transparent. Our time on this Earth winds down from the moment we are born. And as a man in my 60s I can see the end.
I am amazed at myself and how there have been times that even I, he who still remembers he shed tears at my first Eucharist have taken him and his Mass for granted in the past when troubles or the world pressed in on my mind.
So God has reminded me to never take the Mass for granted because one day our shadow will no longer darken the door of St Theresa. One day we will no longer see our brothers and sisters here, the women who have become a mother. The man who cares about you enough to be your father. The brothers and sisters who journey with you to God. One day this family will be beyond our reach and the Eucharist we shared with them inaccessible.
Today I want to remind all of us that the Mass is the most important thing we do with our life. For it is here we commune with God and join with our eternal family to worship him. And doing so are strengthened enough to reach out in the world of chaos to save others. To be charitable. To raise a family of faith. To work and be Christ for others. It starts here.
What have we put before Mass? Are our lives centered on God and his Church and Mass or is it just something we do and we actually have prioritized something else as greater and more awesome than God? What stops us from coming here often?
Our Father in heaven loves us unceasingly. Let us all turn back like the prodigal son knowing that our Father has a place for us. A place we have a job to do. A place where if we are not here we are missed.
In a few minutes, as we come forward to receive the Eucharist, do so with mindfulness of what you are doing. Do it for Jesus and do it for your self.
This is it my friends. My brothers and sisters this is the most important part of our day, the most important part of our life. For without Jesus Christ in our life we are like all the others swimming in the currents of society and this world… here and there… not knowing why we are here or what our mission is.
Jesus told us who we are. He is the big brother who did not wait but traveled to find us and tell us to come home. How differently would be the story of the prodigal son if the older brother was Christ. He would have traveled to his brother. Found him among the swine, hungry and adrift and said to him to come home now.
Christ came to get us and brings us home too.
Mary our mother has come outside and like our mothers used to do, told us the dark of night has come and the street lights are coming on. Time to come home. To have dinner, to eat and drink with our family. To be here inside where there is light.
What would delay us?
Why would anyone say no, I am busy working or busy playing or just too busy….
Be mindful of what we do here and why.
Our eternal life and soul depends on our intellect to listen to the call and use our logic and discernment to prioritize our life and world around his gift of the Eucharist.
The good news today is we are here. We are loved.
Our Father waits for us. Our brother Jesus came looking for us. Our Mother Mary calls us to always come home to be with Jesus. Are we listening?
It’s late. The darkness is falling. And the street lights have come on. We know who we are and who waits for us to come back into the light. To join family. To once again eat the flesh and drink this blood. So that we will once again be strengthened and members of the family of God.
Come forward as if it is your last. It could be. Come forward as if it is truly God for it is. Come forward knowing that you are loved. You are. More than you or I can really comprehend.
Deacon Tony Pynes 
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